The interplay of message framing and incentive framing on hotel guests’ amount of personal information disclosure

Abstract

This study aims to examine how message framing (mutual-benefitting vs self-benefitting message) and incentive framing (conditionally provided vs unconditionally provided incentive) interactively influence hotel guests’ perceived risk and their amount of personal information disclosure. Drawing on the results from two online experiments conducted with 360 past hotel guests from mainland China, hotel guests perceive less risk and tend to disclose more personal information when self-benefitting (rather than mutual-benefitting) message is presented to them. Incentive framing moderates the relationship between message framing and amount of personal information disclosure. When incentive is provided unconditionally, hotel guests who are exposed to self-benefitting messages would disclose much more personal information than those who read mutual-benefitting messages. This study advances the theoretical knowledge about how to motivate guests’ disclosure of more personal information. Unraveling whether and how message framing and incentive framing interactively influence consumers’ information disclosure behavior is another contribution of this study.